Category Archives: The Elder Scrolls

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For one of our forum members, Eirik, Morrowind is a big deal for both himself and his family. As he explained in an email to Bethesda Blog, “It is not uncommon to find us discussing ‘What we did today in Vvardenfel’ at the dinner table every Sunday when we get together.” A fan of creating dioramas (check out his website), he’s actually created Morrowind characters by re-purposing 2-3 inch action figures.

After the break, you’ll find more Morrowind pieces — including mod-inspired characters.

Out of the hundreds (thousands?) of Oblivion mods that have been released since 2006, which could you not live without? PC Gamer’s Tom Senior answered that question today, narrowing down his favorites in “Ten Essential Oblivion Mods.”

We’ve made use of many mods on the list — which includes such stalwarts as Oscuro’s Overhaul and Midas’ wacky magic spells — but we’re less familiar with a couple. Head over to PC Gamer to check out the full feature.

Of course, there are plenty of other Oblivion mods worth a download, and everyone’s got an opinion on which are the best. What are your ten must-haves? Let us know in the comments.

It’s been a couple months since we last did TESting Your Knowledge, so those thirsting for more trivia will be happy to see that there’s several new quizzes put together by Lady Nerevar and other members of our official forums.

Find the quizzes within this thread. Let us know how you faired in the comments section.

Here’s a quick look at some new coverage from our press event, as well as some other bits from around the web…

As reported on Kotaku, the 2010 Guinness Book of World Records Gamer’s Edition features a list of the Top 50 video game series as voted by the gaming public. The list includes both Fallout (#13) and The Elder Scrolls (#29) on their list. You can order the book at Amazon.com here.

PSX Extreme has their Gamer’s Day preview for RAGE up — here’s a snippet from

“When you step back and view it all as one project, Rage really looks very, very promising, and we should also mention that those who have seen it in action say it looks gorgeous. Lastly, the game has finally reached the point where it evidently runs just as well on the PS3 as it does on the 360 and PC…”

In other RAGE-related news, Chris Faylor at Shacknews talked with team members at id Software about cutscenes and the opening for RAGE, working with ZeniMax, the game’s post-apocalyptic setting, and more.

Out of our European press event, we’ve got a pair of new Brink interviews for you to read. Games On Net chats with Senior Game Designer Ed Stern, while Paul Wedgwood is featured in an exclusive interview up at NowGamer. Additionally, you can read Inc Gamer’s preview here.

Rounding things out, Digitial Spy reveals that Rubi Malone was considered the Most Fanciable Female character in gaming — based on a survey My Voucher Codes. If you’re wondering why Raul the Ghoul from Fallout: New Vegas didn’t make the cut for the Most Fanciable Male character, it’s worth noting that only characters from released games were included.

“Elder Scrolls: Oblivion is damn near unbeatable. Sure the main storyline quest is beatable within a couple hours, but the main quest is nothing. There are literally hundreds of quests in this game, and given the world which Bethesda has created for you, you will definitely attempt to complete as many as you can. The fact that there are two huge expansion packs doesn’t make it any easier either.”

“It was this specific mission that appropriately demonstrated Oblivion’s breadth. The game allowed players to brazenly hack and slash their way through difficult scenarios or sneak past them. Each problem players were faced with could be approached from a number of angles. In essence, the Dagon Shrine proved that Oblivion catered to almost every type of role player, which is why it’s worthy of commemoration.”

One final bit on Oblivion. The latest (June) issue of OXM has a small feature titled, “The Developer’s Cut,” where developers discuss content from their games that didn’t make the final release. On page 87, Todd Howard discusses content cut from Oblivion. Head to your local newsstand (or your mailbox) to read it, as well as a new preview for Hunted: The Demon’s Forge.

Putting a bow around this roundup, author Grant Tavinor recently released a new book, The Art of Videogames, featuring Fallout 3 on the cover. Throughout the text, you can find references to DOOM, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 (I’m particularly interested in reading the chapter “The Morality of Videogames”). For more on the subject, Tavinor recently wrote a column for Kotaku in response to comments from film critic Roger Ebert.

Updated: GameSetWatch’s Emily Short has an in-depth look back at her play experience with Fallout 3. Read the article here.

Most notably, the Oblivion DLC aisle is now fully operational, offering the complete selection of digital content for worldwide consumption.

Please note that the DLC store only includes content for the PC platform. There are no refunds on digital content purchased on this site. All sales are final. This content will not be compatible with versions of Oblivion downloaded from Steam.

We return this week with a new Elder Scrolls Modding Interview — this time with Nicholas “Cole” MacLean, or simply Darkrder, who manages the website TES Alliance. A writer by trade, Darkrder happens to be married to a member of the Bethesda forums, Ladyflcn, who helped him work on Temple of Five Lanterns — released last December. The couple live in St. Louis and are expecting their first child this coming Halloween.

How did you get involved with the Elder Scrolls modding community?

I joined the Elder Scrolls modding community completely by chance actually. I originally only played Oblivion on the Xbox 360 console. After some time in game, I noticed a lot of NPC chatter about dogs and owning dogs (of all things to notice) and I wondered if a canine companion was some element of the game I had just missed or overlooked. So originally, I was just looking for a walkthrough or cheat guide that might tell me if that was possible. In a Google search I came up with a download link for a mod called Cheydinhal Petshop by Proudfoot. As I skimmed the page I saw all these mods that were free and it was some pretty cool stuff. I found this community of regular jacks making game content to expand Oblivion on PC and I was fascinated.

We’ve uploaded new fan art to the blog this week. The Xivilai contribution above comes from Rosangela Ludovico (aka Rosy Crystal/dubiousdisc). Here’s a brief description of the piece, as written on her deviantART page:

“This is also the piece I’ve worked the absolute longest on, something like 48 hours. The drawing was made using 24 pencils. It was then painted over with watercolor, using watersoluble pencils for some details like the lava and the tattoos. The fireball was made with acrylic paint.”

Thanks for the submission, Rosangela. As always, we encourage you to share your work with us — whether it’s from The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Brink, or any of our other games. And there will be bonus points for anyone that whips up something involving both The Adoring Fan and Vault Boy.

Recently Robin Scott (aka DarkOne), the site admin for TES Nexus and Fallout 3 Nexus, let us know that both sites have received an overhaul. If you head over to either, you’ll notice the front page now is easier to navigate — with helpful links to image galleries, files of the month, forums, hot files, and more. While browsing Fallout 3 Nexus front page, I came across this cool mod, My Mansion Player Home (shown above), by Ez0n3.

Both sites continue to grow in popularity. Robin also informed us that TES Nexus recently added its 20,000th file, while Fallout 3 Nexus is catching up with 8,700 files.